Any other uses of the funds would be prohibited.<\/p>\n

How F.A.S.T. would be funded<\/strong><\/p>\n

Watching budget hawks weasel out of this plan will be interesting. Its proponents have worked out a funding strategy that makes a great deal of sense\u2014plus, it conforms to the prevailing [and often heartless] dogma of \u201cPAYGO,\u201d which requires any new spending to be offset elsewhere in the Federal budget.<\/p>\n

This part\u2019s a bit wonky, but it\u2019s a key component that helps makes this plan battle ready. According to EPI:<\/p>\n

The fastest way to launch the program would be to add money to existing funding formulas, such as Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. All 16,000 public school districts, including public charter schools, receive funds under Title I. For example, $50 billion could be allocated among them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The nitty gritty of implementation\u2014such as how to prioritize which districts get money\u2014is spelled out in much more detail in the full FAST proposal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With regard to PAYGO, initial funds allocated for FAST could be offset by \u201celiminating fossil fuel preferences, as in President Obama\u2019s FY2012 budget,\u201d says EPI, clearly referring to tax breaks for already rich oil, gas and coal producers. \u00a0\u201cClosing these loopholes raises $46 billion over 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jared Bernstein\u2014a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, and one of the masterminds behind FAST, puts it this way:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a smart way to get a lot of people who really need jobs back to work, fix a critical part of our institutional infrastructure, save energy costs, provide kids with a better, healthier learning environment, and do so in way that everyone can see and feel good about each morning when they drop their kids at school.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

F.A.S.T. is logical, and it has a lot of hard-to-oppose, Mom-and-apple-pie appeal. The question is: Are those two attributes enough? Anyone who’s serious about a jobs program would be wise to get on board. [F.A.S.T. appears to dovetail nicely, by the way, with a jobs plan <\/a>recently proposed by Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowski.] We await words and actions\u00a0 from President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and enlightened lawmakers in support of this common-sense idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America could put hundreds of thousands of people back to work by implementing a proposed stimulus program called F.A.S.T. The acronym stands for \u201cFix<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,6,45,273,47,559],"tags":[2487,555,554],"yoast_head":"\n